Innovation Management Practices, Strategic Adaptation, and Business Results: Evidence from the Electronics Industry

Abstract

This research contributes to the understanding of how different practices of innovation management are related to mid- and long-term growth and profitability. Governments and regional development agencies invest relevant budgets to foster innovation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and improve their innovation management practices to make them more competitive. Nevertheless, it is not clear what impact these practices have on a company's performance over a long period of time. We propose a model to audit and classify innovation practices and empirically test the impact of innovation practices on the firms’ long–term financial performance, using a broad sample of companies in the electronics sector. Our empirical results show that, within a regional context, companies that are similar in terms of size, position in the value chain, and ownership structure follow similar innovative practices. Furthermore, the use of a systematic approach for innovation leads to revenue growth but does not necessarily increase profit or productivity

The impact of strategic innovation management practices on firm innovation performance

“…The literature on firm innovation performance contains a limited number of studies dealing with the impact of the above-mentioned SIM practices in a manner independent from each other (e.g., Igartua et al, 2010;Sanchez et al, 2011;Terziovski, 2010). Moreover, there is not any research addressing the impact of these practices on firm innovation performance by modeling SIM practices as a whole.…”

Innovation Management and Marketing in Global Enterprises

“…Innovation management practices may be classifiedas follows: Management systems (Burns & Stalker, 1961;Kanter, 1983;Leonard-Barton, 1992), creativity (Miltenburg, 1995), innovation strategy (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1995;Goffin and Pfeiffer, 2004), innovation culture (Chiesa et al, 1996;Burgelman et al, 2004), product and process innovation (Blindenbach-Driessen & Ende, 2006), commercial innovation (Yam et al, 2004, technological innovation (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994), and project management (Coombs & Hull, 1998) (Sánchez, et al, 2011).…”

“…Adler et al (1990) have realizedthe need organizational flexibility, process innovation, advanced manufacturing, capability, and product developmentto sustain technological innovation. Yam et al (2004) believe thattechnological capabilities of companies and critical capabilities in strategic planning, organization, resource allocation, manufacturing, and marketing foster success of technological innovation (Sánchez et al, 2011).…”

“…Bin and Salles-Filhoa (2012) propose that technology development and innovation processes must be planned and managed. Sánchez et al (2011) have developed a model to audit and classify innovation practices. This model also applies empirical analysis to determine effects of innovation practices on long term financial performance of companies.…”

“…Innovation ability has been considered as a main success factor for survival and performance of companies (Schumpeter, 1934;Burns & Stalker, 1961;Porter, 1990) in various industries (Huff, 1990;Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1991;Guan et al, 2009) (Sánchez et al, 2011). Igartua et al (2010) state that innovation leads company to grow and have sustainable competitive advantage.…”